Are those implied terms ever found to require the exact opposite of what is set out in the explicit language of the contract?
If the contract says the relationship can be terminated with two weeks’ notice, how many courts do you think would accept that the implied terms included a requirement not to terminate the relationship?
I agree that I’d first see if I could finish the project and then start the new job. More out of solidarity with my co-workers than loyalty to my employer. But assuming that’s not an option: tough shit to you, I’m outta here.
Just want to say that I concur 100%. A contact is a contract, and unless you’re stretching the spirit of the contract beyond reasonableness, “dick move” just doesn’t come into play.
Go you! If they don’t want contractors leaving before the end of a project, then they need to make that a stipulation when the original contract is signed… fucking duh. Loyalty and security go both ways. If they rewrote their contracts, they’d have to trade the ability to shut down projects willy-nilly for the security of knowing you can’t leave mid-project. If he doesn’t like that trade-off enough to put it in the form of a legal contract, then fuck him very much.
It’s possible. For example, wage, hour, and working conditions law will be read into an employment contract even if it specifically provides that they do not apply.
Your relationship with your employers is an economic and should be driven by the economics. If you have a better opportunity, you should take it. If that really injures your employer, they have the option of making you a counter-proposal, which you may reject or accept. As someone who is both an employer and an employee, I just don’t see an issue here.
eta: not really an employer, a manager - but my point here is that if my employees leave, it makes my job more difficult, but I don’t begrudge their decision, that would make no sense.
If everyone just up and quit their job for a higher paying one, we would end up with a race to the top with everyone living in mansions and driving Rolls Royces.
Not if you plan to ever do business with them again.
We don’t have slavery in this country anymore. You can’t, as a practical matter, force someone to work a job they don’t want to do. I doubt **Bag of Mostly Water **would have signed a contract where he would incur significant financial penalties for quitting early.
I really don’t get all the “fuck you employer!” attitude. How bad can the company be after 6 weeks? All they did was hire the OP for the duration of a specific project.
That said, I don’t think the OP did anything wrong, but you can’t blame the company for being a bit annoyed. But shit happens and sucks to be them. What’s he going to do? NOT take a permenent job for more pay and better benefits over a short term contract? That’s one of the reasons they hire contractors. To be able to replace one of the meat-based units with another meat-based unit.
Did you miss the part where it was a 12 week contract?
I think a lot of the ire is because the OP was yelled at.
This isn’t a thread saying, hehe I fucked the man, yahoo. It’s about doing the right thing for yourself and not breaking the deal you had to begin with and getting yelled at for doing it. Fuck him 
Contract employee and manager here. Whenever an employee gives notice, if they have value within the company, the textbook reaction of the boss is always “This couldn’t happen at a worse time…” then talk Mom’s apple pie and rainbows.
OP, You are a contract employee, i.e. a hired gun. If they want to keep you badly enough see if they can make a matching counteroffer. Under normal circumstances you never accept the counteroffer, cuz that just gives the employer time to replace you at THEIR leisure. Then dump you unceremoniously. This doesn’t apply to your case considering the short duration of the project. By all means DO NOT burn a bridge with the old company. Your skill is a marketable commodity; treat it as such and don’t let this become personal. “Dick moves” toward “the company” are a fallacy.
Best case scenario: finish the 12 weeks (at the enhanced rate) then take the new offer.
Actually yes I did. Still missing it. He said it was a 12 week *project *under a contract where he could give two weeks notice.
You also seem to have missed the part that I was arguing the OP was perfectly within his rights.
That’s not how it works. I’m currently in a 6 month contract. Apparently companies contract managers now. “Hi! I’m your manager! I have no idea who you are or how your company works, and I’m technically not your boss and can’t fire, promote or give you performance evaluations and I won’t be here in six months…can you send me this report?” Anyhow, I digress.
The “contract” is the company will pay me an hourly rate for six months, not that I’m an indentured servant for that time. Either of us can terminate the contract at any time. Courtesy dictates I give 10 days notice, but I don’t have to. They can also extend the contract or convert me to a full time employee. As it happens, I also get health benefits because legally I’m a W2 through whatever agency they went through.
I’m also potentially in a similar position to the OP as I’m being courted by a former employer for a full time permenent position.
There are pros and cons to both jobs, but my decision and the timing will ultimately be based on which position (if either) I think will provide the greatest benefit in terms of compensation, career, work/life balance and other factors.
The point is that it’s only a 12 week contract. I doubt the OP would have strongly objected to being locked in for such a short time, in exchange for the relative job security.
Most companies don’t get too bad in 6 weeks, but 6 weeks is plenty long enough for a manager to go horn-sproutingly insane.
This is…wow, I guess I must laugh. It is funny, though it’s pretty freakin sad, too!
I don’t believe in loyalty to companies or corporations. That’s ridiculous.
What I do believe in is loyalties to individuals, like the individuals at the company the OP worked with for six weeks. There people, who have done the OP no wrong, are now screwed because the person they were working with bailed on them. It’s not just the managers and owners, it’s the ordinary employees who had come to rely on the OP who were effected, and where I come from, making other people miserable is what’s known as a dick move.
That’s not to say that what the OP did was illegal, or even wrong, or that I wouldn’t have done the same thing under similar circumstances - it’s just that I wouldn’t have gloated about it, is all. Business is business, but there’s such a thing as being a mensch.
And then, according to the OP, when he availed himself of the terms of the contract to quit with two weeks’ notice because he had a much better job offer, they yelled at him for quitting because of how hard it would be to replace him.
Not cool. If somebody is leaving my employ in a contractually legitimate way because they’ve found another opportunity that will be much better for them than anything I’m willing to do for them, I shouldn’t try to scold or guilt them into staying. Any employer who does that is IMHO quite entitled to a few “fuck yous” on an anonymous messageboard.
Which part of the “yelling at him about quitting because of how hard it would be to replace him” did you not understand?
He’s not gratuitously gloating “Ha ha, I bailed on you and now you’re screwed!” Rather, he’s saying “Don’t yell at me you jerks, I’m perfectly within my rights to quit for the sake of a better opportunity, and if you don’t want your workers to quit on you then you need to offer them more attractive terms”.
Yup, and a mensch doesn’t try to scold or guilt an employee into staying in a short-term temp job when he’s got a much better opportunity elsewhere. A mensch knows that it’s unfair to expect strong employee loyalty from short-term contract workers for whom being loyal offers absolutely zero long-term benefit.
I don’t see it as scolding or guilting. I see it as the person he was working with being genuinely distressed by the fact that he has a project to finish and the person he was relying on to help him with it was leaving. I’d shout, too.